


Sheltered

by icarus_chained



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Case Fic, Children, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Kidnapping, Prompt Fic, Reaction, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 00:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5476922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nora has a reaction to bringing a kidnapped girl back to her parents on one of Nick's cases. Nick stands by her through it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sheltered

**Author's Note:**

> For the kink meme again. I meant to post this yesterday, but Christmas-related panic interfered -_-;

The kid slept in Nick's arms the whole way back. Nora was supposed to be taking point, keeping watch, especially since Nick was somewhat encumbered right now, but she found that she kept glancing back to look at them instead. Just snatches, really, she actually was paying attention to their surroundings as well. She'd never in a million years let anything happen to either of them. But she kept looking, just the same.

The girl was about six, maybe seven. She had more than a few cuts and bruises decorating her face and arms. A couple in other places too. Maybe the gang that had kidnapped her hadn't liked her father much and been happy to take that out on the kid. Maybe they'd just been sick. Either way, Nora had put some bullets in a few special places just for that. Nick would have too, if he hadn't had other priorities at the time. It was very, very obvious that the poor kid had been battered around a lot in the few days it had taken them to reach her.

She had no fear of Nick, though. Right from the first, no matter what he looked like, she'd had no fear of him. A kid's instinct, maybe, or just the way he'd sounded when he appeared beside her, soft and rough and reassuring. She'd clung to him instinctively, knowing that he'd help her, and she hadn't let go for a second since. Nick didn't seem to mind. He held her close against his chest, shielded by his trenchcoat and cradled in his good hand, and kept his gun in his right the better to mind her with. It made something clench in Nora's chest. It made something wrap hot and tight around her heart.

The girl woke up as they got close to civilisation again. Voices, noise, the sensation of people looking at her, Nora couldn't be sure. She stirred fitfully against Nick's chest regardless, recognising that they were near people again, and Nora was close enough to hear the quiet whine of panic that followed the realisation.

Nick answered it. He flexed his arm gently, dipping his head and curling around her slightly, and murmured something calm and soothing to her. The girl went still at the sound of his voice, blinking up at him for a half-second of fear while she visibly tried to remember where she was, and then ... then the tension went back out of her. Well. Not all of it. But a lot. She curled her little hands in Nick's shirt, leaned her face against his chest, and so much of her fear visibly went out of her. She trusted Nick to keep her safe, trusted that anyone who wanted to hurt her would go through him. She hadn't known him more than half a day, and already she trusted that.

Not that Nora blamed her for that. She wasn't wrong, after all. Good instincts, that kid. Right on the money, straight out of the gate.

The parents saw them coming. The whole settlement saw them coming, had probably sent word the instant anything appeared on the horizon. The mother was waiting desperately at the gate, the father with his arm tight around her shoulder and his free hand clenched in fist. They could see the bundle in Nick's arms, maybe. They couldn't see yet if she was alive or not. Nora couldn't look at their faces. She'd shatter if she did. She knew she would. She let Nick take the lead, let him stow his weapon and approach them, content to watch his back.

The girl didn't let him go immediately. It took her a second to understand what was happening, Nora thought. She had a safe place, the first safe place she'd had in a while, and for a second she just didn't understand enough to willingly let go of it. It took Nick gently uncurling her hand from his chest, turning her to see her mother's crying face, for the kid to reach out to her parents with a blind cry of need and joy. They scooped her up, snatched her in between them to shield her between their bodies. They were crying. They were all crying. Nora snapped her head away from them, stared straight up at the sky to keep from doing the same. Nick said something low and soothing to them, reached out to rub the girl's still-exposed shoulder gently in goodbye. He didn't ask for anything from them. Nora'd known he wasn't going to. He stepped back away, came over towards her, and let them curl in together in peace.

He leaned against her when he reached her side. Silently, lightly, just a companionable warmth against her arm. He knew what she was feeling. He knew exactly. He didn't say anything about it, didn't call attention to the prickling of her eyes or the shortness of her breath. He just stood there, while they watched the reunited family cry, and let her feel his presence beside her.

"... Come on, partner," he said, after a little minute. "We can settle up for this some other time. Whaddya say we go walk a ways, give 'em a little more privacy, huh?"

He put his arm around her. His right one, a delicate, careful touch of metal at her shoulder. Just to turn her around, to guide her gently away from them. There was no demand or insistence in it, only a calm, steady patience, and the silent weight of his sympathy. It nearly cracked right through Nora's thin veneer of control right there and then, but she held it somehow. She kept it together while they walked out of the settlement, kept it until they were well out of sight of that ... that happy ending. That bright, happy thing behind them.

He waited with her when she stopped, out of sight but still close enough to the settlement to be reasonably safe. He drew to a halt alongside her, those yellow eyes calm and patient as they watched her struggle with herself, waiting for whatever the outcome would be. She could do anything, Nora thought suddenly. She could try to do anything right now, vent her grief and her empathy and her pained happiness for the family behind them in any way she wanted. He'd bear it. He'd bear her through it, no matter what it was. She knew that as suddenly and as surely as that little girl had known he would keep her safe.

Maybe it was that thought, that equivalence. Maybe she'd just wanted to do this for a long, long time, and had too many cracks inside her now to keep from it any longer. Nora wasn't sure, and didn't care. She just turned into him, turned to face him sharply, took one short step and buried herself abruptly in his arms. He flinched, startled, but she couldn't help but notice that his arms had gone out from his sides instinctively. He'd opened up to let her in, even before he'd fully figured out what she was doing. Even if part of him was shocked by it, even if he stood stiff and wary as a board immediately afterwards, he'd still let her in. Nora let that sink in, let that thought reach down into the tight space in her chest, and leaned into him. She pressed her face into his chest, curled her hands in his shirt. She closed her eyes. 

After a second, slowly, hesitantly, he reached up to wrap his arms around her in turn. She could feel the warm weight of them on her back. She could hear the thrum of his systems beneath her cheek, sense the heavy blanket of his empathy wrap around her like a trenchcoat. She felt herself cocooned by him, felt herself shielded and kept safe, in a world where nobody made promises like that anymore. Nobody could afford to. She felt him wrap around her, and knew right then that that little girl behind them had the best damned instincts Nora had ever seen.

Nick was safe. Nick was the one safe place in all the world. 

How the hell did anyone let that go?

"... Sometimes it works out, sweetheart," he told her softly, one hand reaching up absently to stroke her hair, cradle her head where it lay against his chest. "Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. I try to hold on to the times it does. Helps me remember that it _can_. That good things can happen, that we can _make_ 'em happen. That sometimes we get to keep 'em safe. When there's nothing else, I hold on to that."

Nora made a noise. She didn't know herself what it was. A laugh, an agreement, a cry. All of the above. She just leaned in, wrapped her arms tighter around him. Pressed her forehead against the warmth of his chest.

"Can I hold onto you instead?" she asked, aiming for wry and hitting plaintive instead, desperate and grieved. "Just for a little while. Can I just ... can I hold onto you instead?"

He didn't answer for a minute, his silence heavy and cautious in the irradiated sunshine, and then ... then he curled around her. Like he had that little girl. He swayed her in his arms, rested his battered chin against her head and held her tight. Safe. As safe as anything left in this world could be, and warmer than any of it. Nora gripped him fiercely in return.

"Sure you can, partner," was all he said, soft against her hair. "Always. Whenever you need it. You just say the word."

She laughed at that, just faintly. She shook her head, thinking of a kid's hand caught in his shirt, one that wouldn't let go until he'd gently pried it away. Nora's hands were stronger than a little girl's. They were harder, and fiercer, and could grip so much more tightly. Maybe he shouldn't have given permission to hands like that. Maybe he hadn't quite understood what he was saying.

She didn't think so, though. He knew. He knew exactly. Somehow, Nick always had.

"Good," she said, "because right now, Nick, I don't think I'm ever letting go."


End file.
